Here’s a blast from the past: King Kong is 77 years old this year. For the current generation, that’s older than a lot of grandparents. My own grandfather, who passed away just a few years ago, would have been only a boy when it was released. And what a spectacle it must have been! Seeing Kong on the big screen with an excited crowd for the first time in 1933 should have been captivating (and much safer than for the eerily similar audience sitting in front of Carl Denham’s hubris exhibit in the final act of the movie). Unfortunately, it’s an experience that cannot be recreated in the modern world. With decades of movies and billions of dollars worth of special effects under our belts, today’s audience is more difficult to impress. In a very real way, King Kong is itself the grandfather of the modern monster movie, and while we may respect our grandparents, our ideas of fun are generally a little different. I freely admit, as a self-professed monster aficionado, Kong has suffered some generation decay for me as well. While that means I wasn’t blown away by Kong in the same way as its contemporaries, I still view the movie as an entertaining mile marker in film history. READ FULL REVIEW